Learn More: Reflect

Reflect on Teaching

Faculty will provide evidence of self-reflective practice and continued growth.
from Criteria for Tenure

Consider your teaching strengths and preferences and how that influences the methods you
chose to use. Think about how you did or did not provide multiple methods of presenting the
content to your students.

What different ways did students have to show their developing competence in
attaining the outcome? Did your assessments give you the
information you were seeking?

Are your teaching methods and assessment measures well aligned with your outcome?

What was effective and worthy of using again? What needs to be changed or improved
to be more useful?

Were your methods relevant to your students? Did your methods value what they
already know, and did your students have a voice in their education (asset vs.
deficit model)?

Were outcomes equitable? Were all kinds of students able to demonstrate competence or
was there a pattern of specific types of students (e.g., international students,
women, or students of color) doing poorly? To what do you attribute the equitable
or non-equitable outcomes?

Resources

What Is Reflective Teaching And Why Is It Important?.
Roseli Sera, "Richmond Share" blog (2015).
"Reflective teaching is a personal tool that teachers can use to
observe and evaluate the way they behave in their classroom. It can be
both a private process as well as one that you discuss with colleagues.
When you collect information regarding what went on in your classroom
and take the time to analyze it from a distance, you can identify more
than just what worked and what didn't. You will be able to look at the
underlying principles and beliefs that define the way that you work.
This kind of self-awareness is a powerful ally for a teacher,
especially when so much of what and how they teach can change in the
moment."

Reflective Practice.
Academic Advancement Network, Michigan State University.
"Reflecting critically on our teaching is an important way to maintain
ongoing growth and development as a teacher. These links provide both
introductory and advanced materials on reflective practice, including
definitions and examples, a tutorial, several approaches to becoming a
more reflective practitioner, and tools for reflective practice."

The Reflective Teacher: Taking a Long Look.
Edutopia (2014).
"All educators need time in their day to reflect and think about the
different ways they can be better. We ask this of our students, so why
shouldn't we do the same?"

Fostering reflection.
Lana M. Danielson, Educational Leadership, ASCD, (2009).
"A disposition toward reflection-and a good sense of when the teacher
needs to step back and think deeply-should be part of all teachers'
repertoires."

Bonus Resources

Help students reflect on thier learning as well.

When to Use Whole Class Feedback.
Maryellen Weimer, Faculty Focus (2014).
"When the teacher returns a set of papers or exams and talks to the entire
class about its performance, or comments on how students completed the
task, [the most effective discussions] are future-focused discussions.
Based on their performance, what do they need to do next time? The
discussion should identify specifics; things done well that they should
continue doing, along with things to stop and start doing. Maybe some
proposed actions become class goals-measurable ones that will be revisited
after the next exam, paper, online discussion, or in-class activity."

Assessment Cycle: Reflect

"Reflecting" is the third phase of our assessment cycle. We look back
on whether our teaching strategies were successful and what changes we can make
improve to student learning.

Each quarter you should document your history of assessment, analysis, reflection,
and action.